Justice for Cecily

On Monday, May 5, Occupy Wall Street activist and friend of Dissent Cecily McMillan was unjustly convicted of assaulting a police officer at a demonstration celebrating the six-month anniversary of OWS. She is being held at Rikers Island until sentencing on Monday, May 19, and faces a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.

In response to this egregious verdict, members of the Justice for Cecily team have collaborated with fellow activists, writers, and editors—including Dissent contributing editor Sarah Leonard and members of the Dissent staff—to produce the Free Cecily! gazette. Prior to next week’s sentencing, the gazette aims to highlight Cecily’s case and the wider issues it raises about police brutality and repression of civil liberties, including the right to protest.Free Cecily! features contributions from Maurice Isserman, Sarah Jaffe, Molly Knefel, Natasha Lennard, Chase Madar, and Mychal Denzel Smith; illustrations by Molly Crabapple; Cecily’s statement from Rikers; and more.

3 Responses to Justice for Cecily

Dear Molly Crabapple! ~
Once more You are THERE: Thank You so much!
What “the Public” ~ those people who don’t often risk arrest for their principles ~ realize is that IT IS UNIVERSALLY ROUTINE for cops to accuse their VICTIMS of assault! {I’ve got a few of these on my rap sheet for showing up “armed” with a camera!}
So while I have ‘dropped back’ behind the front lines to OCCUPY my ‘umble Mendocino hideout {a fulltime yob, it turns out!}, I enthusiastically APPLAUD Your perseverence and Presence~with~Pen in the sharkpit that is the Activist courtroom du jour!
Your Work is Immensely & Uniquely Valuable to both the Historic Outcome and Immediate Morale Support of these Critical Struggles!
Let’s talktalk sometime!
Peace, Love, Revolution/Revelation!
Your Sister-in-Ink,
K. Rudin

Dear Molly Crabapple! ~
Once more You are THERE: Thank You so much!
What “the Public” ~ those people who don’t often risk arrest for their principles ~ realize is that IT IS UNIVERSALLY ROUTINE for cops to accuse their VICTIMS of assault! {I’ve got a few of these on my rap sheet for showing up “armed” with a camera!}
So while I have ‘dropped back’ behind the front lines to OCCUPY my ‘umble Mendocino hideout {a fulltime yob, it turns out!}, I enthusiastically APPLAUD Your perseverence and Presence~with~Pen in the sharkpit that is the Activist courtroom du jour!
Your Work is Immensely & Uniquely Valuable to both the Historic Outcome and Immediate Morale Support of these Critical Struggles!
Let’s talktalk sometime!
Peace, Love, Revolution/Revelation!
Your Sister-in-Ink,
K. Rudin

Join us on The Ignorance Equation this Sunday at 1PM EST for my interview with Occupy Activist, Cecily McMillan. As well as an update on Cecily’s upcoming court appearance. Plus the “Pissed Off News” with Honey Badger and enough Political Discourse to Occupy your Disgruntled Little EarHoles! Miss an episode? Listen in on the archives!

Join us on The Ignorance Equation this Sunday at 1PM EST for my interview with Occupy Activist, Cecily McMillan. As well as an update on Cecily’s upcoming court appearance. Plus the “Pissed Off News” with Honey Badger and enough Political Discourse to Occupy your Disgruntled Little EarHoles! Miss an episode? Listen in on the archives!

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Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer in New York. Her memoir, Drawing Blood, was published by HarperCollins in 2015. Brothers of the Gun, her illustrated collaboration with Syrian war journalist Marwan Hisham, will be published by One World/Penguin Random House in May 2018. Her reportage has been published in the New York Times, New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, VICE, and elsewhere. She has been the recipient of a Yale Poynter Fellowship, a Front Page Award, and a Gold Rush Award, and shortlisted for a Frontline Print Journalism Award. She is often asked to discuss her work chronicling the conflicts of the 21st Century, and has appeared on All In with Chris Hayes, Amanpour, NPR, BBC News, PRI, and more. The New Yorker described her 2017 mural "The Bore of Babylon" as "a terrifying amalgam of Hieronymus Bosch, Honoré Daumier, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” Her art is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Rubin Museum of Art and the New York Historical Society.